‘Virality’ is not a success metric

I recently came across this fantastic piece of advertising. It’s all about having a friend share it with you (as they personalise it), so watching it from the link will miss the point. I need to tell you what it is for to talk about it, which slightly ruins the experience of watching it, so apologies for that.

The ad is from the Swedish government, and it’s to get people to pay for their broadcasting fee for TV. It’s a movie, and this is the final frame:

On the left you can pay your broadcasting fee. On the right you can send it to a friend. What is interesting here is the little strapline that runs at the bottom right of the movie:

And a click through explains that the video had a very high number of views:

I’m going to assume that the client’s metric for success was not to create the most viral video out there. After all, the audience is people living in Sweden. I’m assuming the success metric was the number of people who went on to pay their broadcasting fee. So why is that not the metric being promoted? Surely a better promotion is:

“Find out how we motivated 21% of people in Sweden to pay their broadcasting fee (and created the most successful global viral interactive ever).”

Virality is not a success metric. How many times something gets shared or forwarded is only ever a means to an end. Your message might be out there, but people might be sharing something because they are mocking your brand, not because they are celebrating it.

We need to get better at measuring and promoting the metrics that matter.

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